The process for creating semiconductor thin-film optoelectronic devices involves fabrication of relatively large-area units, or “tiles,” which are then separated into smaller units, or “cells.” Instruments used for this separation include mechanical cutting tools and lasers. These instruments take “tiles” and produce “cells”, with no intermediate state. Such existing approaches utilizing fully-separated cells require expensive additional tooling for subsequent cell-level handling and processing.
There can be processing advantages to having a technique which effectively separates thin-film optoelectronic tiles into individual cells while allowing them to still be handled and processed as a single tile. A separation process that uses tooling that is already online with no additional material requirements would be desirable. A process that facilitates easy testing and handling of the cells is also desired.